RIP Tom Davies

Two years ago I posted about how one of the professors from my MA program at San Diego State University (Charles Andrain) had died. I just recently got an email from someone who got their MA earlier than me who ran across my post. That prompted me to reach out to people at SDSU I still know, at which point I found out that Tom Davies died in February 2019, which I hadn't known. He was only 78.

Tom was a historian of Latin America and given my own inclination toward political history became a natural fit for my MA thesis (on U.S. recognition policy). Tom had a big personality. As one faculty member put it in a memorial:

When he left, our universe was poorer--and it stayed that way. Now, we are all poorer for having lost him, but forever enriched by the example he set for living life richly and deliciously.

I took one of Tom's classes (I don't remember exactly but I think it was on indigenous groups in Latin America) and met with him regularly about my thesis. He was an early riser and so I often met in his office on the ground floor of Storm Hall somewhere about 7:30 am. I can clearly hear his deep, resonant voice in my head.

He was effusive and warm. One of my enduring memories is being at his house for a Latin American Studies party, where he walked around in his guayabera (I never saw him in anything else) with a big bird on his shoulder, and smoking Marlboro reds (remember this was almost 30 years ago!) while talking to everyone. What I didn't know at the time was that he also served as expert witness for hundreds of asylum cases, especially for LGBTQ immigrants. Later as I finished my dissertation, I was an adjunct at SDSU for three semesters (filling in for my MA advisor and longtime mentor Brian Loveman while he had a grant) and was on the market. I got a phone interview at a university in Nebraska and since Tom was from there he took me to lunch (Por Favor in La Mesa, for some reason I remember this) to talk about it.

Really just a tremendous person. I hadn't seen him in years but feel sad that he's not still with us.

With both Charles and Tom, it is a reminder that even in the midst of our daily grinds, we can make lifelong and lasting impressions and serve as models if we do our mentoring well. It's funny for me to think that I am now just about the same age as all my professors were when I was in the MA program.